Gary De Mattei and I (aka the REAL Team) were invited to celebrate the signing of Intro 1233, with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio. Intro 1233 bans the use of wild animals in circuses and goes into effect October 2018. It took 11 years of hard work by NYC Council Member Rosie Mendez and many animal rights advocates to pass this landmark ordinance. I spoke at length about this ban with John Philips and Allie Feldman of the Empire State Humane Voters on It's All About Food back in May. You can listen to that HERE. Read about the entire day in What Vegans Eat - Day 898.

As always, I have included some of my recent favorite interviews and new REAL recipes.

I was honored to interview Philip Wollen in the studio when he was visiting from Australia. There are no words to describe how incredible this person is. Please listen to the interview and hear about his important work.

Carl Pope teamed up with former NYC Mayor Bloomberg to write the New York Times Best Seller, Climate of Hope. He took time out of his busy schedule to discuss this book with me. Naturally, we focused a lot on the food system's contribution to climate change.

Jasmine Leyva talked about the new feature length documentary she is co-producing called The Invisible Vegan. Listen to the interview and find out how you can help this project!

Back in April, Gary and I went to see a 5-hour-plus presentation of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra in Manhattan, starring Eunice Wong. I wrote about it in What Vegan's Eat - Day 809. We met Eunice after the show and I started to connect the dots. In addition to being an award-winning actor, she is the author of What The Health, the official companion book to the documentary of the same name. She also wroteThe Sustainability Secret, the official companion book to the documentary, Cowspiracy. I asked her to come on my show for an interview when we met. Have you seen this new documentary What The Health? Since its release on Netflix on June 16, we've seen a big increase in visits to our site, and that's a good thing!

The Vegan Mos, Michael Suchman and Ethan Ciment joined me in the studio to chat about their new cookbook, NYC Vegan. We had so much fun. If you are looking for a reason to smile, tune in to this interview.

This past Tuesday I spoke with Ann Hodgman. She's the author of 40 children's books and 5 cookbooks, most recently Vegan Food for the Rest of Us. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review and Gourmet. We spoke about her new cookbook and I learned some great tips as well. This book is ideal for folks that are wary about vegan cooking. There are NO recipes for salads or green smoothies in the book.